Dear Mr Gualtieri, Ms Ribkina and Commissioner Hill,
On 30 September 2014 we sent you ESMA’s Work Programme for 2015, which was based on the budget request that had been approved by ESMA’s Board of Supervisors: a budget of €38,639,000 and 147 Establishment Plan posts. The EU budget had not been voted at the time. Following the adoption of the EU budget, ESMA’s 2015 expenditure budget is €33,601,402 (plus an additional €3,100,000 from assigned revenues for tasks delegated from National Competent Authorities) with an Establishment Plan of 137 posts.
ESMA’s Board of Supervisors has approved a revised work programme to account for the difference of €5m and 10 Establishment Plan posts; representing a 15% reduction compared to the planned ESMA budget and 7% of its Establishment Plan. ESMA will therefore lack sufficient resources to execute all the tasks that were initially planned for 2015. The Work Programme explains the areas where reprioritisation had to take place, including the risk that ESMA will not fully meet its legal obligations, for instance due to the delay of delivery compared to legally set timetables. A summary of the deprioritised tasks is annexed to the Work Programme and reproduced in the table below.
2014/1200rev ESMA Work Programme